I bought a new flashlight. In fact, I bought more than one. I am finding that I need more light to look into small places, etc.
I think of something I read from Mary Manin Morrissey. It went something like this: “We sometimes in our life would like to have a floodlight but God gives us a flashlight.”
I know there have been times in my life where for a little while I got a glimpse of a larger picture. These have been times when I became aware that there is something more that I am to be exploring in my life. So many times I have wanted to know what the whole picture looked like. I wanted to ask, like Abraham, when God told him to go: “Now the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.'” What Abraham found, as have I, is that we are shown not all at once, but one step at a time. We want a floodlight and the Universe gives us a flashlight. I recently came across a wonderful quote from Teilhard de Chardin about being patient.
"Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”
Retrieved from: http://teilhard.com/2013/04/29/teilhard-de-chardin-quote-of-the-week-april-29-trust-and-patience-prayer/
As we consider that may be in store for us this New Year, we can trust the process and become more comfortably with seeming “instability.”
I think of something I read from Mary Manin Morrissey. It went something like this: “We sometimes in our life would like to have a floodlight but God gives us a flashlight.”
I know there have been times in my life where for a little while I got a glimpse of a larger picture. These have been times when I became aware that there is something more that I am to be exploring in my life. So many times I have wanted to know what the whole picture looked like. I wanted to ask, like Abraham, when God told him to go: “Now the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.'” What Abraham found, as have I, is that we are shown not all at once, but one step at a time. We want a floodlight and the Universe gives us a flashlight. I recently came across a wonderful quote from Teilhard de Chardin about being patient.
"Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”
Retrieved from: http://teilhard.com/2013/04/29/teilhard-de-chardin-quote-of-the-week-april-29-trust-and-patience-prayer/
As we consider that may be in store for us this New Year, we can trust the process and become more comfortably with seeming “instability.”
RSS Feed